Something Like a Star
by Ashi
Summary: Zechs witnesses a confrontation between Relena and Heero.


We don't live in a perfect world (or at least my idea of one ^_^), so Gundam Wing or any works by Robert Frost do not belong to me. This story, however, is a product of my very own warped imagination and hyperactive muse. Yay, me!

Something Like a Star

In the end, no one could have changed her mind. She had always been stubborn, and a bit cruel, as I remember her, fragmented memories of a cherubic little girl placidly throwing her dolly out the window of a moving vehicle flashing through my mind. One of the little porcelain fingers had snapped off earlier that afternoon as she tried to wedge the handle of a teacup onto it, and she no longer felt the need to play with it, never mind that it had been in the family for years, passed down from each Peacecraft mother to the wife, then to the daughter, in a cycle that was nearly as old as the family itself. And my sister had tossed it from the backseat window of our chaperone's car as easily and guiltlessly as if it had been an apple core, stripped of its fruit and left to rot. 

I, a boy of ten and feigning nonchalance, shifted in my seat to watch the doll smash into the pavement in a shower of tiny porcelain shards, only to tumble over and over her frilly blue skirts and curled flaxen hair before lying still, broken and already forgotten, as Relena twirled a feather thoughtfully in her pudgy fingers. Perfectly symmetrical if not for a few odd downy wisps, it was a pristine white pinion dropped from the wing of some foreign sea bird, one Pagan had retrieved from where it had caught and tangled in the hair of one of our three dogs, flashing in the sun and easily seen against the velvet black of Chaos's fur. 

I averted my eyes as Relena abruptly grew bored with her game and crushed the feather in one deft contraction of fingers, humming under her breath as she shook the mangled little ball from her hand and let it drop to the floor.

Years later, she would do much the same thing, only under a slightly different context. I would not realize this until some time afterwards, in a rare speculative moment, a mug of untouched coffee steaming the underside of my chin as I watch the turbulent path of a like feather making its inevitable journey to the ground. It did not touch, a sharp gust of wind enfolding it in its fickle embrace and carrying it back to the sky, and I could not help but ponder the circumstances. 

It had been not two days previous, as I sat in the silent recluse of the study-a recluse I had taken to enjoy following the echoing clash of the Eve Wars-poring over my father's journals, which had survived, thanks to the foresight of Pagan under the assurance that I "would like them someday"-the fire that had consumed my first home. I flipped through yellowed pages absently, not seeing the words, only listening to the steady slide of paper against paper as they rose and fell in unison, and breathing in the rainstorm scent that only aged pages carry-a smell that sparked a sense of nostalgia, although at the time I could not place it.

Then, another sound, distant and drumming, filtered through the closed door, and I reluctantly closed the thick book, observing the pool of my hair as it fell to rest on top of the binding; it was an ivory platinum where it should have darkened years ago in a mimicry of my father's. I sighed imperceptibly as the approaching footsteps lost their faintness and became distinct as they rounded a corner, I quickly filing through mental data banks to place them. Two sets of footsteps, one slightly heavier, most likely male, that much was obvious. And I had long since recognized the other's smooth, demure stride as belonging to my sister, 16 now and already one of the most powerful individuals on Earth and in space, a petulant little girl no longer. The footsteps entered the hallway, Relena slightly in front, leading the way. And then I knew who it was, who was with her, the dull thud of heavy combat boots combined with a face in my mind, the face of a boy I had once both hated and admired, a boy who had served as an enemy to me and a companion, in the way only two matched rivals can be.

To this day I do not understand why I did it, as it would have been an easier thing to have simply left them to their privacy, not to mention that my heart would be less heavy if I had not witnessed what would transpire next. Nevertheless, I, in a moment of panic, uncertainty, and perhaps, in the back of my mind, muted curiosity, found myself flat-backed against the wall of a far corner, draped in a combination of shadows and loose tapestry, as the door swung open and two figures blackened the doorway. 

They entered wordlessly, wordlessly closing the door behind them, and wordlessly walking to the desk I had been at not moments ago. Heero trailed my sister dutifully, as-and I felt an unprovoked wave of nausea at the thought-a leash-broken dog, or rather, a wolf, would follow the one who held the other end of its rope, something wild that was never meant to be tamed, and heartbreaking for that. And he was like a wolf as I watched him move, his stride crisp and aggressive, yet possessing a smoothness: a fluid grace that was not unlike the languid play of flames licking towards the sky, or a visible embodiment of the wind itself; otherworldly and ethereal. It was these qualities that made whole crowds of people part themselves to give him passage; they could see the wolf in the willowy boy that walked among them, in the play of sinewy muscles and calculating eyes. Feral, deadly. Beautiful. And it was these qualities that had attracted Relena those few years ago, at the tides of rising conflict between the colonies and Earth, when child soldiers were still a largely unknown resource. 

Years of watching my sister's cruelty would cause me to attain my own odd attraction to flawed and broken things, an attraction that would lead me to my first love in a soft-spoken short-haired girl, and later, an attraction that would cross my path with one Heero Yuy, a boy with a stolen name, who would become, by circumstances neither of us could control, my first enemy.

I thought, then, as I watched him sit obediently across from my sister at the desk, his back a rigid line in the dark room, that I had not thought of him as an enemy for quite some time. Days spent, and some nights, extracting every last bit of gundanium alloy from the charred remnants of the Marae-Maea coup-for every last bit had to be disposed of-had a unifying effect. Neither of us talked much, nor had an affinity for the exchange of useless pleasantries, so a good deal of our conversations were punctuated with the occasional grunt of assent, terse comments about the work or incompetent machinery, or half-muttered curses swallowed by the steady hum of bulldozers and arguing mechanics and the ever-present grind of metal against metal. But, usually, we worked in silence, and fell into a comfortable routine of working, lifting, towing-eating somewhere in between- and falling into an exhausted sleep at night in our bunks at the scrap-yard, watching lightening bugs create lazy patterns in the dark sky. And there were no words, but then, we didn't need any. I'd fall asleep, feeling Heero's stoic presence across the room and knowing that he was still awake, looking at the fireflies and through them, to the distant stars of the colonies, and I would smile at the irony. They say a hello is a thousand good-byes.

When she started, I did not notice at first; I was still somewhere in the fog of nostalgia, a wry smile tugging at my lips, a smile that would be abruptly drawn into a silent gasp of shock as I realized what Relena was saying. Harsh words spilled out of her mouth in quick-fire succession, accusations and sarcastic remarks spat at the boy who sat, ever-quietly, across from her as she spoke in that blade-in-silk tone I knew so well; a serpent's tongue in an angel's face. But if she was cool, Heero was cooler, detached and stoic, examining the intricate woodwork of the desk's surface, the fall of unkempt hair hiding his eyes from view. Occasionally he would nod his head minutely, in acceptance to something she had said, but I wasn't listening to Relena's words anymore. I only saw the results, which, visibly, amounted only to a slight tensing in the muscles of his back and in the downward tilt of his head, hardly different, but I noticed. And I felt the results, as well, as I had felt the results of my sister's cruelty before, in different people, in different situations.

"You're not human." She bit the words out slowly, deliberately, measuring their effectiveness. "You don't even know your real name." She stood and walked away with regal dignity, honey-brown hair-Father's hair-bouncing sharply behind her. Her footsteps became fainter until they disappeared completely, and my eyes never left Heero, who sat in the exact position she had left him in, as if nothing had happened. I was sure he would hear my breathing, or somehow sense my presence with the uncanny awareness that was attributed to him, but minutes passed and he seemed oblivious to his surroundings. Relena always did have that effect on him.

I watched in morbid fascination as a droplet of moisture traced down the boy's cheekbone and pooled at his chin, leaving a crystalline streak behind it that caught the light and appeared luminous on his dark skin. It dropped and hit his hand, causing him to jolt and stare down at it as though noticing it for the first time. And maybe he was. He rose, then, heavily and awkwardly, his usual grace absent as he moved like a sleepwalker toward the door. He no longer reminded me of the fierce wolf I had always seen in him, but of the lost little boy I knew he had always been. He straitened before entering the hallway, falling back into an easy stride as he rounded the corner and disappeared from view. 

He would later disappear from Earth entirely, perhaps finding his way back to the colony whose freedom he had fought for and gained, when he did not understand the very word "freedom" itself. Maybe this was what I had admired so much, this boy who loved so fiercely and completely when he had never been given anything of the nature, or was expected of it. But he did, and for that, I realized that he had always been more human than wolf. 

Today marks the last afternoon I will spend in the study for quite some time; Noin's terra-forming project has received anonymous approval, and as of that, I will be on the first shuttle to Mars tomorrow morning. I watch the sky from out the window, Father's journal resting comfortably on my forearm, the only thing I will be taking from this planet. Out of habit, I bring the thick, leather-bound book to the height of my chest, tracing over the raised feathers of the gold-embossed dove I know will be at the bottom-left corner, before turning the cover and letting the pages fall open on their own accord. I breath in the scent of rain, placing the smell with an image forming in my mind, a memory I had misplaced long ago.

//A little boy, near four, with impossibly light hair pulled back in a small ponytail, sits half-dozing on his father's lap, gazing with heavy-lidded crystal blue eyes at the book spread out on his father's knee. Vaguely, in the echoing tones of a voice caught in the mind of one who is somewhere between dreaming and wakefulness, the low baritone resounds softly from above the boy, then from all around him, mixing and shaping his dream as the far-away slide of turning pages brings with them a familiar smell. The little boy sleeps in his father's embrace, dreaming of thunder that sounds like laughter, and rain that tastes like tears.//

A wetness slides, unnoticed, down my cheek and lands with a tiny splash on the pages below. The ink only blurs slightly, having long since dried, and I look down on a hastily-scrawled block of writing I don't recognize. Thinking I must have skipped a page in my reading, I leaf backwards, only to find a section of blank pages before reaching the last entry, which I had committed to memory. A puzzled frown creasing my brow, I flip through the unfinished pages at the back of the journal, once again coming across the undated passage, scribbled in a cramped cursive, thin, and meandering gradually sideways up one half of the page, as if...

Realization dawns, becoming more vibrant and bright with each word as my eyes skim the phrases of the poem quickly, my vision becoming blurred as I mouth the words softly to myself.

"O Star(the fairest one in sight),

We grant your loftiness the right

To some obscurity of cloud-

it will not do to say of night

Since dark is what brings out your light.

Some mystery becomes the proud,

But to the wholly taciturn,

In your reserve, is not allowed.

Say something to us we can learn,

By heart and when alone repeat.

Say something! And it says, 'I burn.'

But say with what degree of heat...

...So when at times the mob is swayed

To carry praise or blame too far,

We may choose something like a star

To stay our minds on and be staid." 

A perfect recitation of Robert Frost, all written in that same, unfamiliar cursive. Awkward and childlike, because the writer was unfamiliar with English. "Choose something like a star," I whisper in the sudden unbearable stillness of the room, riveting my gaze to the window, where outside, the stellar colonies are forming the first tiny pinpricks in the darkening sky.

Note: I can't spell "Marae-Maea"...

Okay, well, that was interesting. Anyway, this is a prequel to "Things of Beauty," if you feel like finding where Heero went (in my little world, of course!). Hint: Relena has nothing to do with it. Sadly, neither does Duo. And I was so trying to find a way to cram braid-boy into this thing! Oh, well, enough rambling. 

Reviews welcome. Really.


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